Saturday, April 07, 2007

On Thursday we went to the zoo!

Reprising last year's successful trip to Belfast Zoo, we went back on Thursday.




A bright sunny day, and lots of colourful animals. A spot of elephant podiatry (chiropody) was on the cards.



And the penguins remain the star attraction.


1 comment:

royman said...

Personally I am not a big fan of Prisons for Animals which is what Zoos really are. I find them (Zoos)reprehensible and that animals are stalked, captured and transported to worldwide internment camps, usually into climates they are not accustomed to. They are then caged and put on show for triumphalist humans to gape at.

And the argument that Zoos are educational is pure bumkin. Learning that a snake for example, sheds its skin is worthless information to me in my social or working environment.

Lunatics like the late Steve Irwin was the biggest abuser of animals on TV. He and his crew would stalk innocent animals like crocodiles and reptiles. Capture then plant it in a location where the crew would proceed to film him fortuitously comming across his prey. If it was a croc he and his gang would then jump on the terrified animals back and proceed to hog tie it. As for snakes he would grab them by the tail and hold it up to the camera like a trophy. Disgusting.

We keep hearing about endangered species and dwindling numbers. Maybe if the Zoos of the world returned thier prisoners to their native environment then the decling numbers would reverse.

The most sorrowful scene I witnessed was at old Bellvue Zoo in Belfast when I was a child. They had a grey wolf in an enclosure - a nicer name for a cage- and it did nothing but pace up and down from its concrete shelter to the end of its world, a perimenter fence then turn around and pace back to its concrete hut and it repeated this trek over and over. The look on that suffering once noble animal was heartbreaking.

I say let's close all Zoos Worldwide.